The Supreme Court of Canada is the highest court in the judicial system of Canada. It comprises nine justices, whose decisions are the ultimate application of Canadian law, and grants permission to between 40 and 75 litigants each year to appeal decisions rendered by provincial, territorial and federal appellate courts. The Supreme Court is bijural, hearing cases from two major legal traditions and bilingual, hearing cases in both official languages of Canada.
Section 7 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms is a constitutional provision that protects an individual's autonomy and personal legal rights from actions of the government in Canada. There are three types of protection within the section: the right to life, liberty and security of the person. Denials of these rights are constitutional only if the denials do not breach what is referred to as fundamental justice.
Section 2 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms ("Charter") is the section of the Constitution of Canada that lists what the Charter calls "fundamental freedoms" theoretically applying to everyone in Canada, regardless of whether they are a Canadian citizen, or an individual or corporation. These freedoms can be held against actions of all levels of government and are enforceable by the courts. The fundamental freedoms are freedom of expression, freedom of religion, freedom of thought, freedom of belief, freedom of peaceful assembly and freedom of association.
William Ian Corneil Binnie is a former puisne justice of the Supreme Court of Canada, serving from January 8, 1998 to October 27, 2011. Of the justices appointed to the Supreme Court in recent years, he is one of the few appointed directly from private practice. On his retirement from the Court, he was described by The Globe and Mail as "arguably the country's premier judge", by La Presse as "probably the most influential judge in Canada of the last decade" and by the Toronto Star as “one of the strongest hands on the court.”
R v Boucher is a Supreme Court of Canada decision. In the case, the Court overturned a conviction for seditious libel, on the grounds that criticizing the government was a valid form of protest.
United States v Burns [2001] 1 S.C.R. 283, 2001 SCC 7, was a decision by the Supreme Court of Canada that found that extradition of individuals to countries in which they may face the death penalty is a breach of fundamental justice under section 7 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. The decision reached that conclusion by a discussion of evidence regarding the arbitrary nature of execution although the Court did not go so far as to say that execution was also unconstitutional under section 12 of the Charter, which forbids cruel and unusual punishments.
Robert William Pickton, also known as the Pig Farmer Killer or the Butcher, was a Canadian serial killer and pig farmer. After dropping out of school, he left a butcher's apprenticeship to begin working full-time at his family's pig farm, and inherited it in the early 1990s.
R v Khelawon, 2006 SCC 57 is a leading decision by the Supreme Court of Canada on the principled approach to hearsay evidence.
R v Harrison, 2009 SCC 34 is a decision of the Supreme Court of Canada on section 24(2) of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. The decision was a companion case of R v Grant, and applied the Supreme Court's new test to determine when evidence obtained from a Charter breach should be excluded.
R v Basi is a landmark decision by Supreme Court of Canada where the Court weighed the rights of the defendant versus the privileges of an informant in an important trial into alleged government corruption.
The passage of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms in 1982 allowed for the provision of challenging the constitutionality of laws governing prostitution law in Canada in addition to interpretative case law. Other legal proceedings have dealt with ultra vires issues. In 2013, three provisions of the current law were overturned by the Supreme Court of Canada, with a twelve-month stay of effect. In June 2014, the Government introduced amending legislation in response.
Michael Moldaver is a former Canadian judge. He was a puisne justice on the Supreme Court of Canada from his 2011 appointment by former Prime Minister Stephen Harper until his retirement in 2022. Before his elevation to the nation's top court, he served as a judge at the Ontario Superior Court of Justice and the Court of Appeal for Ontario for over 20 years. A former criminal lawyer, Moldaver is considered an expert in both Canadian criminal law and the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
R v Spencer, 2014 SCC 43 is a landmark decision of the Supreme Court of Canada on informational privacy. The Court unanimously held that internet users were entitled to a reasonable expectation of privacy in subscriber information held by Internet service providers. And as such, police attempts to access such data could be subject to section 8 of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
R v Fearon, 2014 SCC 77 is a leading section 8 Canadian constitutional law case, concerning the constitutionality of warrantless law enforcement searches of the contents of a cell phone incident to arrest.
The open court principle requires that court proceedings presumptively be open and accessible to the public and to the media.
R v Mentuck is a 2001 criminal case in Canada which led to changes in undercover police procedure and how to interrogate suspects.
Justice Sopinka wrote for a unanimous court in this appeal from the Alberta Court of Queen's Bench on a case in which a Criminal Code section 486 publication ban was overturned by the trial judge, Justice Feehan, after he had found the primary witnesses for both sides of a sexual assault trial to be unreliable.
Re Vancouver Sun is a leading Supreme Court of Canada case regarding the open court principle, freedom of the press and publication bans. The open court principle is the "right of public access to the courts".
Fleming v Ontario, 2019 SCC 45 is a decision of the Supreme Court of Canada on the powers of police officers under the common law ancillary powers doctrine. The Court unanimously held that police officers did not have the authority to arrest someone engaging in lawful conduct to prevent a breach of peace by others.
R v Stairs, 2022 SCC 11 is a constitutional rights decision of the Supreme Court of Canada. The Court established new standards for searches of a person's home after they have been arrested. At issue in the case was whether the traditional common law power of Search Incident to Arrest, which allows police officers to engage in warrantless searches of lawfully arrested persons, was compliant with section 8 of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms as it related to searches of the home.
